Circular economyhttp://www.eea.europa.eu/media/infographics/circular-economy/view
A simplified model of the circular economy for materials and energyNo publisherresource useresource efficiencygreen economycircular economy2016/01/18 10:00:00 GMT+1InfographicCircular economy in Europe — Developing the knowledge basehttp://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/circular-economy-in-europe
The report describes the concept of the circular economy and outlines its key characteristics. It draws attention to both the benefits and challenges in transitioning to such an economy and highlights possible ways to measure progress.No publisherresource useresource efficiencygreen economycircular economy2016/01/18 10:00:00 GMT+1PublicationResource efficiency — material resource efficiency and productivityhttp://www.eea.europa.eu/soer-2015/countries-comparison/resource-efficiency
Setting the scene

Natural resources underpin economic and social development, and over-consumption of these resources has resulted in environmental degradation and economic losses. Improving the resource efficiency of European economies and societies is essential, and this objective has been on the European environmental policy agenda for more than a decade.[1][2][3]

The SOER 2015 briefing on resource efficiency provides an overview of the status, trends and prospects at a European level. This SOER 2015 cross-country comparison focuses on material resources and uses resource productivity, the headline indicator chosen to monitor trends in resource efficiency under the Roadmap to a resource-efficient Europe.[4]

About the indicator

Resource productivity is defined as the ratio between gross domestic product (GDP) and domestic material consumption (DMC). DMC measures the total amount of materials directly used by an economy, and is defined as the annual quantity of raw materials extracted from the domestic territory, plus all physical imports minus all physical exports. It is expressed in tonnes per capita. This indicator is regularly published by Eurostat for individual countries and the EU as a whole.[5][6]

DMC does not include upstream material use related to imports and exports originating outside of the focal economy. Therefore Raw Material Consumption (RMC) has been proposed as a complementary indicator, as it better accounts for resource use embedded in trade. Modelling estimates for RMC have been produced by Eurostat for the EU-27 but are only available for a few individual countries.

Policies, targets and progress

Resource efficiency is a strategic priority of the Europe 2020 Strategy, a policy response to address a wide spectrum of important economic and environmental concerns.[7] In 2010, a flagship initiative for a resource-efficient Europe was adopted[8] and the resulting 2011 Roadmap to a resource-efficient Europe identified milestones for specific areas and almost a hundred individual actions to be taken by the European Commission and Member States.[4] One of the priority objectives of the 7th Environment Action Programme, which will guide European environment policy until 2020, is to 'turn the Union into a resource-efficient, green, and competitive low-carbon economy'.[9]

However, no targets have yet been adopted for resource use or resource efficiency at a European level. In the recent communication, Towards a circular economy: a zero-waste programme for Europe,[10] the European Commission proposed the adoption of a resource-productivity target, and it is hoped that this would provide an impetus for countries to also adopt targets. At present, only a few individual countries (e.g. Germany) have concrete and measurable targets accompanied by a deadline.[11]

Many European countries have developed their own national programmes or strategies for resource efficiency. These initially tended to address individual topics such as energy consumption or waste recycling. However, they have gradually expanded to cover wasteful production and consumption patterns; the increasing cost of energy and raw materials; the rising global demand for raw materials; concerns over depletion of resources and the security of supply; environmental pollution; and global impacts of greenhouse-gas emissions.

A review of national initiatives shows that there is a great variety of regulatory settings and organisational arrangements in place in relation to resource-efficiency policies.[11] National policy priorities and responses are guided by EU regulations but vary widely, driven by a combination of local economic and geographic conditions, environmental priorities, and economic concerns.

The total use of material resources is strongly correlated with the population of a country and the size and structure of its economy. In 2012, the three countries with the largest total DMC were Germany, France, and Poland, while those with the lowest were Malta, Luxembourg and Cyprus.

The economic crisis that started in 2008 has been a major factor shaping trends in resource use. In individual countries and at European level, the most significant changes in resource use took place during 2007–2011 (Figure 1). In the EU-27, DMC grew from 15.6 tonnes/capita in 2000, peaked at 16.7 in 2007, before declining by 19% to the current figure of 13.7 in 2012 (Figure 1). In 2012, the countries with the highest per capita DMC were Finland, Estonia and Ireland, while the lowest were Spain, Hungary and the United Kingdom.

Figure 1: Material resource use (DMC) per capita in 32 European countries (2000, 2007 and 2012)

There has been a reduction in per capita DMC in the majority of countries over the period 2000 to 2012. The largest decline was recorded in Ireland (50%) (Box 1) and Spain (49%) — mainly caused by a collapse in construction activities — followed by Italy (38%) and Cyprus (32%). Per capita DMC increased in 13 countries, and the largest per-capita increases over this period — primarily due to large-scale infrastructure investments — were recorded in Romania (178%), Estonia (104%), Lithuania (54%), Bulgaria (46%) and Turkey (44%).

Box 1: A collapse of the construction sector

Figure 2: Ireland total DMC by component (2000, 2007 and 2012)

Between 2000 and 2007, Ireland had the highest DMC per capita in the European Union, at three times the EU-27 average. This was due to the construction boom resulting in very high consumption of construction minerals (38 tonnes per capita of minerals alone in 2007 — more than twice the average total DMC per capita). Another contributing factor was large-scale agricultural production, resulting in the second highest DMC-biomass per capita in the EU-27 at almost 10 tonnes in 2007.

The economic decline started in 2008, and resulted in the total DMC per capita in Ireland decreasing by 55% between 2007 and 2012, with the use of construction minerals decreasing by 70%. With a DMC per capita of 24.2 tonnes in 2012, Ireland is now third-highest in the EU-27, 77% above the EU-27 average.

Resource productivity, expressed as a ratio of GDP to DMC, links overall resource use to economic activity. Between 2000 and 2012, it increased markedly in the European Union (by 29% for the EU-27 and by 39% for the EU-15), a sign that European economies are creating more wealth out of the material resources that they use, although it also reflects changes in material use and the structure of economies.

The country with the highest resource productivity over the available time series is Switzerland. Switzerland, Luxembourg, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands have consistently been the most resource-efficient economies in Europe between 2000 and 2012. The increase in resource productivity between 2000 and 2012 was highest in Ireland, Spain, Slovenia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Italy, Cyprus and the United Kingdom. Only two countries — Romania and Estonia — experienced a decline in resource productivity in the same period.

There are large differences amongst countries, with little evidence of convergence of resource-productivity rates between 2000 and 2012. Resource productivity is lower in the new member states and in non-EU members. This is partly due to construction sector activity, which dominates material use in many countries.

Prospects

Many factors determine resource use and productivity, including climate, population density, infrastructure needs, domestic availability of raw materials versus reliance on imports, prevailing fuel in the power generation sector, the rate of economic growth, technological development, and the structure of the economy.[12] There is also the long-term tendency for absolute amounts of resources used to increase in tandem with economic growth despite technological progress (the 'rebound' effect).

The long-term objective of current European environmental policies is that the overall environmental impact of all major sectors of the economy should be significantly reduced, and resource efficiency increased.[9] This policy goal —a double decoupling of resource use from both economic growth and environmental impacts— provides a framework and direction for national policies.[8]

The large differences in resource-efficiency performance amongst countries — and the fact that the same half-a-dozen countries have remained at the bottom of resource efficiency rankings since 2000 — indicates opportunities for improvements and actions.

Efforts to support the exchange of good practice in policy design could be one tool to facilitate faster uptake of the most effective solutions. In addition, the use of indicators such as RMC will give a broader perspective on resource productivity, incorporating upstream material use. However, the link to the overall environmental impact of resource use is still not easily captured within available indicators.

Global demand for resources has increased substantially since the start of the 20th century, driven by a number of closely related trends. Across the world, countries have undergone structural economic change, shifting from agrarian societies, primarily reliant on biomass to meet energy and material needs, to urban, industrialised economies (GMT 2). The technological advances that accompanied economic development have provided many more uses for resources, and greatly improved methods for locating and extracting them. Coupled with a quadrupling of the world’s population in the 20th century (GMT 1), innovation has underpinned a 25-fold increase in economic output (GMT 5), bringing radical changes in consumption patterns.

Looking ahead, the global population may increase by more than a third by 2050, reaching 9.6 billion.[1] World economic output is projected to triple in the period 2010–2050.[2] And the middle class may increase from 27 % of the world population of 6.8 billion in 2009 to 58 % of more than 8.4 billion in 2030.[3]

At the same time, however, some of the drivers of past increases in resource use could alleviate demand in the future. For example, continued structural economic change – away from industrialised systems and towards services and the knowledge economy – could offer ways to decouple further economic growth from resource use. Similarly, a continued shift from diffuse rural living to compact urban settlements could translate into less resource-intensive lifestyles (GMT 2).

Trends

Intensifying global demand

Global materials use is estimated to have increased almost ten-fold since 1900, accelerating from annual growth of 1.3 % in 1900–1949, to 2.6 % in 1950–1999, and 3.6 % annually in 2000–2009 (Figure 1).[4]Developing regions account for an increasing proportion of global resource use. Whereas Europe was responsible for 19 % of total resource extraction in 1980 and the US accounted for 18 %, by 2009 both had fallen to 10 %. Asia’s share increased from 41 % to 57 % over the same period.

Resource use tends to rise as countries develop economically. However, there is evidence that growth slows or ceases at high income levels, as a consequence of reduced investment in infrastructure, structural economic change, efficiency improvements and the relocation of some manufacturing to countries with lower labour costs.[5]

Figure 1: Global total material use by resource type, 1900–2009[4]

International Monetary Fund analysis, for example, indicates that consumption of base metals and steel rises in step with per person gross domestic product (GDP) but reaches a saturation point at USD 15 000–20 000 (2000 PPP), except in countries, such as South Korea, where industrial production and construction continue to play a major role in economic growth.[6]

Consumption of energy resources follows a similar pattern. Cross-country analysis shows a strong correlation of energy use to economic output (Figure 2). Yet in many developed countries energy use has been stable for some decades, albeit at very different levels. In 2012, the citizens of EU-28 countries consumed roughly the same amount of energy as they did in the late-1970s. In the US, energy use per person has changed little in almost half a century, while GDP per person has more than doubled.

Data source: World Bank World development indicators - [a], [b] and [c]Note: The graph shows the correlation of national per capita energy consumption and per capita GDP. The size of the bubbles denotes total population per country. All values refer to the year 2011.

While these trends indicate a huge improvement in energy efficiency, it is clear that advanced economies remain very resource intensive. If developing regions adopt similar systems of production and consumption it will have huge implications for global resource demand. For example, if the current global population increased average energy use to EU levels it would imply a 75 % increase in world energy consumption, while an increase to US levels would imply a 270 % rise.

Projections of future resource use indicate that developing regions will drive up global resource demand in coming decades. The Sustainable Europe Research Institute (SERI) expects world resource use to double between 2010 and 2030.[5] The International Energy Agency projects that global energy consumption will increase by 31 % in the period 2012–2035, based on energy policies in place in early-2014.[8]

Uncertain access to critical resources

While global demand for resources is set to grow significantly in coming decades, the outlook for supplies is more uncertain. Geographic concentration of reserves in a limited number of countries is a concern since it affords suppliers considerable influence over global prices and supplies, as illustrated by the influence of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries over global oil markets. Uncertainty regarding access to commodities increases if reserves are concentrated in politically unstable regions.

Certain non-renewable resources deserve particular attention because of their economic relevance, including their role in green-energy technologies. In 2014, the European Commission identified twenty critical raw materials, based on the risks of supply shortage and their economic importance to Europe.[9] Global production of these materials is quite concentrated (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Proportion of global production of EU critical raw materials within a single country, 2010–2012[9]

Data source: European Commision 2014Note: The figure shows the 20 raw materials identified by the European Commission as being critical because of risks of supply shortages and their impact on the economy.

Identifying alternative resource streams

Uncertainty about resource supplies can create strong incentives for countries to identify other ways to meet their resource needs, either by locating new sources of traditional resources or identifying substitutes. For example, rising fossil fuel prices, coupled with state efforts to promote alternatives, have incentivised huge investment in renewable energy in recent years. Global investment rose from USD 40 billion in 2004 to USD 214 billion in 2013. Renewable power capacity, excluding hydropower, increased more than six-fold in this period.[10]

As well as facilitating a move towards other energy sources, technological advances have also boosted access to fossil fuels. Estimates of reserves evolve rapidly as new deposits are discovered and innovation allows previously unusable or unreachable reservoirs to be exploited, for example via deep water drilling and the extraction of shale gas and oil. Indeed, proven global reserves of oil and gas have increased substantially since 1980 – faster than consumption of either resource. As a result, the number of years that proven oil reserves would last at current rates of consumption has increased from 30 to more than 50 years.[11]

Implications

Insecure access to essential resources and price volatility are threats to economic development and living standards. Global commodity prices have spiked repeatedly in recent years, reversing long-term downward trends.[12] Such uncertainty represents a clear risk to the European economy, which is dependent on imported resources, particularly metals and fossil fuels.[13]

In addition to economic risks, attempts to secure access to resources can foster insecurity and conflict.[14] Tensions can arise in connection with competing claims over resource stocks or, less directly, as a result of attempts to restrict trade flows. As the World Trade Organization notes, 'in a world where scarce natural resource endowments must be nurtured and managed with care, uncooperative trade outcomes will fuel international tension and have a deleterious effect on global welfare.'[15]

Escalating resource use also imposes an increasing burden on the environment, through impacts related to resource extraction, use and disposal. Such impacts will increase if higher prices and growing concerns over scarcity induce countries to exploit sources such as tar sands that were previously deemed uneconomic.

Clearly, growing scarcity and rising prices also create strong incentives for private and public investment in research and innovation aimed at exploiting abundant or non-depletable resources, such as wind and solar energy. Governments can augment these incentives through ecological fiscal reform — increasing the tax burden on resource use and pollution.

Innovation can also alleviate resource demands by increasing efficiency or reducing waste, although such improvements can also make products cheaper, incentivising increased consumption. For these reasons, reducing resource demand often requires a mixture of technological improvements and policy measures addressing consumption.

Moreover, technological innovations can also augment pressures on the environment by increasing access to non-renewable or polluting resources. For example, new sources of fossil fuels could weaken the momentum behind global efforts to boost efficiency and mitigate climate change. In globalised markets, governments may have difficulty correcting market prices and pursuing ambitious greenhouse gas mitigation due to opposition from businesses and consumers. The result would be to delay the shift to cleaner alternatives and greatly increase harmful emissions.

In the context of escalating global environmental pressures, it has become increasingly clear that Europe's prevailing model of economic development — based on steadily growing resource use and pollutant emissions — cannot be sustained in the long term. Already today, Europe's ecological footprint is double its land area and the European Union (EU) is heavily reliant on imports of resources. In 2011, the EU imported almost 60% of its fossil fuel and metal resources.[1]

At the most basic level, resource efficiency consists of 'doing more with less'. It captures the relationship of society's burden on nature (in terms of resource extraction, pollution emissions, ecosystem pressures) to the returns generated (e.g. gross domestic product (GDP) or sectoral output) (Box 1).

Resource efficiency has a vital role in facilitating economic development within environmental boundaries, but it also offers broader social and economic gains. These include sustaining non-market ecosystem services (such as purifying air and water), securing supplies of critical resources, increasing competitiveness, and stimulating innovation and job creation.

Europe's medium- and long-term strategic planning recognises the fundamental importance of resource efficiency. For example, the EU's 7th Environment Action Programme (7th EAP)[2] identifies as one of its priority objectives the need to 'turn the Union into a resource-efficient, green, and competitive low-carbon economy.'

Similarly, the EU's Roadmap to a resource-efficient Europe[3] includes a vision for 2050, wherein 'the EU's economy has grown in a way that respects resource constraints and planetary boundaries, thus contributing to global economic transformation.'

Key trends

While the notion of 'doing more with less' is conceptually very simple, quantifying resource efficiency is more complex in practice. Resources differ hugely: some are non-renewable, some renewable; some are depletable, others are not; some are hugely abundant, some extremely scarce.

The environmental impacts of resource use can also vary greatly depending on the timing and location. For these reasons, producing meaningful estimates of the environmental burden associated with economic activity simply by calculating the ratio of resource use to economic output can be problematic.

The EU's Resource Efficiency Scoreboard,[4] which is being developed pursuant to the Roadmap to a resource-efficient Europe, therefore offers a diverse mixture of perspectives on resource efficiency trends. It establishes 'resource productivity' (i.e. the ratio of economic output to material consumption) as its lead indicator, on the basis that materials are the primary link between the economy and the environment.

But it also includes other 'dashboard indicators' on carbon, land and water, as well as 'thematic indicators' on economic and environmental topics.

Box 1: Resource efficiency and decoupling

The resource efficiency challenge is often framed in terms of 'decoupling' economic output from environmental inputs.

Figure 1: Decoupling demystified

Decoupling can take several forms:

Relative decoupling is achieved when an environmental pressure (e.g. resource use or emissions) grows more slowly than the related economic activity (e.g. sectoral gross value added (GVA) or national GDP).

Absolute decoupling is achieved when an environmental pressure remains stable or decreases while economic activity increases.

Impact decoupling is achieved when environmental impacts decline relative to resource use and economic activity.

Increases in resource efficiency will always imply some decoupling of economic activity from environmental pressures. But they do not necessarily indicate absolute or impact decoupling.

Material resource productivity

Resource productivity is defined as the ratio of GDP to domestic material consumption (DMC), i.e. the total amount of materials directly used by an economy, including all physical imports and excluding exports.[5]Eurostat is developing an additional indicator for the EU as a whole, raw material consumption (RMC), which provides a better indication of Europe's resource demands from overseas by including the materials used in producing traded goods and resources. Although the trade flows calculated via this method are much larger, the overall effect on estimates of total EU resource consumption is quite small (an increase of about 5%).

EU-28 resource productivity (GDP/DMC) stood at EUR 1.73/kg in 2012, compared to EUR 1.34/kg in 2000. Despite this improvement, there is little evidence that European resource use has decoupled from economic growth in absolute terms. Although EU-28 total DMC declined between 2000 and 2012, from 7.6 billion tonnes to 6.8 billion tonnes, this was largely due to the economic problems since 2008. Between 2000 and 2007, EU-28 total DMC actually increased by 10%, indicating growing resource use.

Figure 2: EU-27 domestic and raw material consumption

Resource productivity varies significantly across Europe, ranging from EUR 0.2/kg in Bulgaria to EUR 3.6/kg in Switzerland in 2012. There was little evidence of convergence of resource productivity rates between 2000 and 2012. Some of the countries that started with the lowest resource productivity rates recorded negligible improvements or declines during that period. Contrastingly, some of the countries with the highest resource productivity in 2000 recorded the largest percentage increases over the next 12 years. These differences are largely explained by construction sector activity, which dominates resource use in many countries.

Other resource efficiency trends

Turning to the other indicators in the Resource Efficiency Scoreboard, there is evidence that some environmental pressures are decoupling from economic output growth in relative or absolute terms (Box 1). Yet even in cases where pressures are declining, the burden on natural capital often remains excessive, threatening the delivery of the ecosystem services that underpin social and economic development. For example:

EU-28 greenhouse gas emissions declined by 19% between 1990 and 2012, implying a 38% reduction in emissions per EUR of GDP. Despite these improvements, the EU remains far from the 80–95% reduction by 2050 seen as necessary for developed regions.

Water use is decreasing for most sectors and in most regions but agricultural water use, in particular in southern Europe, remains a problem.

The waste intensity of manufacturing and service sector economic output has declined since 2004, as has the municipal waste intensity of household spending. However, municipal waste generation has hardly changed in absolute terms.

Prospects

Europe's systems of production and consumption continue to impose considerable demands on the environment. Meanwhile, global megatrends such as population growth, urbanisation and the emerging 'consumer middle class' in many developing countries are expected to drive steady growth in global competition for resources in coming decades.

Addressing these challenges will require fundamental changes in Europe's systems of resource use and economic growth. One essential aspect of this change will be a shift away from a linear (take-make-dispose) model of resource consumption, towards a circular economywhere nothing is wasted.

Waste prevention and management are clearly important in creating a circular economy but factors such as product design and choice of material inputs also have a major influence. EU policy has already driven improvements in recycling of certain waste streams, yet substantial increases are possible and could greatly reduce reliance on virgin resources. Eco-innovation also has a crucial role, enabling producers to reduce their resource use or shift to less harmful or scarce substitutes (for example in the transition from fossil fuels to solar or wind power).

There is evidence, however, that isolated resource efficiency improvements are often insufficient to guarantee a decline in environmental pressures because the benefits are offset by increasing consumption and lifestyle changes (a phenomenon known as the 'rebound effect'). For example, fuel consumption and CO2 emissions from private cars have increased markedly in the last two decades, despite improved fuel efficiency, because Europeans are driving more.

These realities point to the need for more fundamental adjustments to the systems that meet society's demand for goods and services, addressing production and consumption concurrently. New business models that move away from individualised ownership towards service provision and shared consumption of products have an important role here.

Tackling the 'rebound effect' and effecting systemic change in systems of production and consumption will require a smart policy mix, including market-based instruments, regulations, voluntary agreements and labelling approaches. A review of national experience in policy implementation shows that there is no one 'right' combination of policy approaches and instruments. The successful policy mix will be determined by local conditions and will need to address priority concerns first.

]]>No publisherresource useresource efficiencygreen economysustainable resource managementsocio-economy2015/02/18 00:00:00 GMT+1BriefingAn artistic view of Europe's waste – EEA announces competition winnershttp://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/an-artistic-view-of-europe2019s
After 200 entries from 29 countries, the European Environment Agency (EEA) is pleased to announce five winners of the Waste•smART competition, which invited Europeans to produce a video, cartoon or photo on the topic of waste.When things come to the end of their useful life, they are often thrown away with little thought for the consequences. However, the way we manage waste in Europe often means we lose valuable resources. Other effects of poor waste management include greenhouse gas emissions and pollution harming human health. While a recycling culture is becoming the norm in some countries, others are still lagging behind. The Waste•smART competition invited participants from 39 European countries to reflect on these issues.

Thirty finalists were selected. From this initial selection, a group of communication experts from across Europe chose a winner in each category (photography, videos and cartoons), and selected an additional winner of the 'youth prize', open to all entrants between the ages of 18 and 24. The public also voted for their favourite finalist in an online poll. All five winners will receive a cash prize of €500.

The finalists' entries will be promoted throughout 2014 in EEA publications and events related to the topic of waste and resource use. And the winners are…

Stephen Mynhardt from Ireland won the cartoon category, with 'Collective responsibility'

The photo competition was won by Stipe Surać from Croatia, who submitted this:

Judges awarded the best video prize to Sebastian Loghin from Romania for his short video 'Recycle':

Greek Konstantinos Pappas won the youth prize with this animation, titled 'The Aim':

Finally, almost 1 800 people voted for the public choice award. Spaniard Irene Sanfiel, also known as Zireja, won with 573 votes for 'The waste coast'.

]]>No publisherresource usewaste•smartwaste managementpublic outreachcompetitiongreen economywaste2013/12/12 16:10:00 GMT+1NewsThe two key aspects of resource efficiencyhttp://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/figures/the-two-key-aspects-of
The schema shows how resource efficiency relates to the use of natural capital and ecosystem resilience.No publisherEEA standard re-use policy: unless otherwise indicated, re-use of content on the EEA website for commercial or non-commercial purposes is permitted free of charge, provided that the source is acknowledged (http://www.eea.europa.eu/legal/copyright). Copyright holder: European Environment Agency (EEA).resource usebioenergyresource efficiencybioenergy potential2013/08/15 15:14:12 GMT+1FigureEU bioenergy potential from a resource efficiency perspectivehttp://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/eu-bioenergy-potential
The main objective of this report is to review the implications of resource efficiency principles for developing EU bioenergy production. The results presented are primarily based on the 2013 ETC/SIA study, capturing key messages while excluding some of the more technical elements. The report aims to be a more accessible version of the ETC/SIA study, aimed at the non-technical reader.No publisherresource usebioenergyresource efficiencygreen economy2013/07/03 06:00:00 GMT+1PublicationEnvironmental tax reform in Europe: implications for income distributionhttp://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/environmental-tax-reform-in-europe
Although environmental tax reforms (ETR) tend to improve incomes across society, they can have mild regressive impacts in that richer households gain more than poorer ones. Care is needed to design ETRs in ways that ensure that certain groups are able to benefit equally. ETR's overall benefits for the economy, environment and society are potentially significant. ETR should therefore be regarded as a key element in the policymaking toolkit for shifting to a green economy.No publisherresource usegreen economyenergy pricesgreen taxessocial equityenvironmental tax reformsocial inequalitiesenvironmental taxeshousehold consumptionconsumer pricespollution2012/01/09 11:00:00 GMT+1PublicationGlobalisation, environment and youhttp://www.eea.europa.eu/media/newsreleases/globalisation-environment-and-you
New EEA report highlights connectivity between global issuesKenyan asparagus, Vietnamese tuna and European dinner tables were just some of the victims of the transport chaos caused by the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland in April 2010, according to EEA Signals 2011, a yearly story-based report from the European Environment Agency (EEA) released today in Szentendre, Hungary.

The eruption clearly illustrated the connectivity between some of the key systems underpinning our globalised society, from trade to health and the environment. This connectivity, its benefits and drawbacks, are key themes of Signals 2011, which tells its stories through the real life experiences of people around the globe.

Professor Jacqueline McGlade, Executive Director of the EEA, said: "The environment connects us all. Many of the raw materials we use come from distant countries, and their extraction sometimes has unintended consequences. European consumption also produces a lot of waste.

"Signals shows that we need to think about the lifecycle of resources – where they come from, how we use them, how we recycle waste materials. This provides a global perspective, showing the opportunities and constraints in a modern, globalised world."

Dr. József Ángyán, Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development, Hungary said: "As the public consultation on the preparation of National Rural Development Strategy in Hungary has shown, these issues also pose a major challenge at local regional and national level. There is a huge potential in the wisdom and personal experience of local communities, complementing other data-gathering exercises and delivering a clear message for us all concerning the way forward."

While Chance and the Bhuyan family have very particular experiences and personal stories, their lives – like ours - are increasingly shaped by global forces which connect us all. As Europeans, our role is often as consumers. The European lifestyle, and the legitimate aspirations of billions of people to mirror this high-consumption way of life, will largely define our common future.

In 2012 we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, which established sustainable development as a major political aim around the world. A ‘Rio+20’ meeting will try to reinvigorate and redefine sustainable development. With Signals 2011, the EEA starts on the road to Rio with a clear message: the poorest of the poor depend on the environment daily for survival. Sustainable development - with the eradication of poverty at its core - cannot succeed without securing, as a first principal, a healthy environment.

]]>No publisherresource usegreen economyconsumptionglobal megatrendssustainabilitywastesustainable consumption and productionglobalisationresources2011/06/27 14:20:00 GMT+1Press ReleaseEyewitness: the boy Chancehttp://www.eea.europa.eu/signals/signals-2011/articles/eyewitness-the-boy-chance
Bisie is the biggest mine in the area. It is located approximately 90 kilometres inside dense forest and reaches 100 metres underground. The mines are often little more than a hole in the ground. Dozens of men and boys crowd each mine and conditions are atrocious. Five years ago this place was jungle. Today as many as 20 000 people are employed carrying and mining the minerals here. They come from far away with a dream of making money. But living expenses are so high due to the informal taxes demanded by armed groups that most people can’t afford to get out again. There are hundreds of such mines all over east Congo. Bisie alone is estimated to produce minerals worth USD 70 million a year.

Once above ground, the minerals are brought to towns such as Ndjingala, Osakari and Mubi. The carriers walk the 90 kilometres in two days, bearing as much as 50 kilos each. Every day 600 carriers come out of the woods with a total of 30 tonnes of minerals.

Cassiterite from Bisie is bought by middlemen linked to exporters and international traders who sell the ore on to smelters on the open market. At the smelters, the tin is refined and sold either directly to solder manufacturers, or through international metal exchanges. Finally, tin solder is sold to manufacturers for use in the production of electronic gadgets.

"The first time I crawled down the hole — I could not stay for very long. I wasn't used to the heat, so I could only stay for two hours down there. Again and again I had to go down, work a lot and then come up again. It was very hot, and I couldn’t handle it. I ran away from Bisie mine during a massacre. But I didn't achieve my dream — so now I came back home to finish school."

The World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF) calls the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) one of the most important centres for biodiversity in the world. WWF says the challenge is to preserve the forests of the Congo, their species and the carbon sequestrated in the swamp forests while improving the livelihoods of the Congolese people.

This is a global challenge. In its Millennium Development Goals Report 2005, the United Nations states that ‘despite the many benefits of globalisation, nearly half the world’s 2.8 billion workers still live on less than USD 2 a day. More than 500 million of these workers subsist on half that much. It goes on to say that "reducing poverty will require more jobs and more productive employment."

The text in this section of Signals is partly based on the documentary film ‘Blood in the Mobile’, directed by Frank Piasecki Poulsen. Congo photography copyright Mark Craemer.

]]>No publisherresource usenatural resourcesglobalpovertyresource efficiencyglobalisation2011/06/27 12:38:32 GMT+1ArticleSharing nature's richeshttp://www.eea.europa.eu/signals/signals-2011/articles/sharing-natures-riches
Of the 8.2 billion tonnes of materials consumed in EU-27 Member States in 2007, minerals accounted for 52 %, fossil fuels for 23 %, biomass for 21 % and metals for 4 % (SOER 2010)Thousands of kilometres from Europe in the state of Orissa nestled up against the Bay of Bengal, trucks trundle past in their thousands. This is east India, the legendary spring of India's mineral wealth and a major source of materials for global industrial growth in the past. The mineral wealth in this part of India is still among the most valuable in the world and its industrial revolution may only be starting.

The tribal people living in the forest here have a lot to lose and little to gain. The forest tribes are not well protected — their rights have never been set down or properly recognised. In a small tribal village deep in the forests covering the district of Gajapati, married couple Gangi Bhuyan and her husband Sukru Bhuyan live with their young family in and around the forest.

For about five months of the year they feed their family from the less than half acre plot of land they cultivate on the verge of the forest that surrounds Raibada, their village. During this time they also harvest vegetables, seeds, fruit, medicine and building materials (such as grass) from the forest. For a further four months, this is their main supply of food. Without the forest they would starve. For the remaining three months they are forced to migrate to large urban areas such as Bangalore or Mumbai where they work as labourers.

Wealth below the ground — poverty above it

Orissa, located in peninsular east India on the Bay of Bengal, is richly endowed with a variety of minerals. Indeed the state is regarded as one of the most resource-rich states in the country. In terms of quality, the minerals found in Orissa are considered among the best in the world.

With its abundance of largely unexplored reserves of coal, iron ore, bauxite, chromite, limestone, dolomite, manganese, granite, tin, nickel, vanadium and gemstones, the state is experiencing a huge leap in industrialisation. For a few minerals Orissa also constitutes a significant share of world reserves, not just in terms of quantity but also quality. That is why international companies are queuing up to gain access.

Some of the minerals are used in India but a sizeable amount go elsewhere: China, Japan, South Africa, Russia, Korea, Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Ukraine, Nepal, USA and of course, the European Union (Ota, A.B., 2006).

Fault lines of our global world

Orissa, with its combination of wealth in the ground and poverty above it, illustrates several fault lines of our global world. Here inequality, the relentless drive for natural resources and forced migrations come together. While mining in Orissa does bring economic benefits to the area, these returns are not shared equally. For the forest tribes the cost is high because their homes are in jeopardy as mining companies increasingly seek to gain access to their land.

Sixty per cent of Orissa's tribal populations live on land below which mineral wealth is buried. Traditionally, however, they have no record of rights over this land. Displacement of tribal people to enable economic development projects, including mining activities, has happened for some time. But the scale of the displacement has changed in recent decades, with economic developments since 1991 increasing the number and spread of displacements (Ota, A.B., 2006).

Growing impacts of Europe's resource use

In Europe, we rely heavily on natural resources to fuel our economic development and wealth. Our use of resources now exceeds local availability and we increasingly depend on resources from elsewhere in the world.

In fact more than 20 % of the raw materials we use in Europe are imported. And we use significantly more raw materials indirectly as we also import finished goods made elsewhere.

Our reliance on imports is particularly serious with regard to fuels and mining products. But Europe is also a net importer of fodder and cereals for European meat and dairy production. And more than half of EU fish supplies are imported; having depleted our own fish stocks, we are now doing the same elsewhere.

The environmental pressures related to extracting resources and producing traded goods — such as the waste generated, or water and energy used — affect the countries of origin. The resource impacts can be significant — in the case of computers or mobile phones they may be on a scale several orders of magnitude greater than the product itself. Yet, despite their importance, such pressures are seldom reflected in prices or other signals that guide consumer decision-making.

Another example of the natural resources embedded in traded products is the water required in growing regions for many exported food and fibre products. Such production results in an indirect and often implicit export of water resources. For example, 84 % of the EU's cotton-related water use lies outside the EU, mostly in water-scarce regions with intensive irrigation.

Where nature's benefits flow

Natural resource use links to a range of environmental and socio-economic issues. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB process) — a major analysis of the global economic significance of biodiversity — sheds light on the links between biodiversity loss and poverty.

TEEB researchers sought to identify the immediate beneficiaries of many of the services of ecosystems and biodiversity. 'The answer', writes Pavan Sukhdev, Head of the UNEP Green Economy Initiative, 'is that it is mostly the poor. The livelihoods most affected are subsistence farming, animal husbandry, fishing and informal forestry — most of the world's poor are dependent on them (EC, 2008).

The impact of the loss of biodiversity in India also has serious implications for women as it severely affects their role as forest gatherers. Studies in the tribal regions of Orissa and Chattisgarh, have recorded how deforestation has resulted in loss of livelihoods, in women having to walk four times the distance to collect forest produce and in their inability to access medicinal herbs which have been depleted. This loss reduces income, increases drudgery and affects physical health. There is also evidence to show that the relative status of women within the family is higher in well-forested villages, where their contribution to the household income is greater than in villages that lack natural resources (Sarojini Thakur, 2008).

In Europe, we are often insulated from the direct impacts of environmental degradation — at least in the short term. But for poor people directly reliant on the environment for food and shelter, the effects can be severe. The weakest in society are often bear the greatest burden from the destruction of natural systems, while deriving few, if any, of the benefits.

Annual natural capital losses are typically estimated at an unimpressive few percentage points of GDP. If, however, we re-express these in human terms, based on the principle of equity and our knowledge of where nature's benefits flow — i.e. to the poor — then the argument for reducing such losses gains considerable strength.

This point applies around the globe. It is about the right of the world's poor to livelihood flows from nature which comprise half of their welfare or more, and which they would find it impossible to replace (EC, 2008).

Natural capital and ecosystem services

The concepts of 'natural capital' and 'ecosystem services' are at the heart of discussions about humankind's relationship with the environment. To understand them, it's useful to consider what natural systems actually do for us.

Take forests, for example. Forests can provide all sorts of food: fruit, honey, mushrooms, meat and so on. If properly managed, they can also deliver a sustainable flow of resources such as wood to the economy. But forests do a lot more too. For example, trees and vegetation help ensure a healthy climate locally and globally by absorbing pollutants and greenhouse gases. Forest soils decompose wastes and purify water. And people often travel far to enjoy the beauty and tranquillity of forests, or to engage in pastimes such as hunting.

All of these services — providing food and fibre, regulating the climate and so on — are valuable. We would pay a lot for machines that could do the same thing. For that reason, we should think of ecosystems as a form of capital, which provides services to the owner but often also to other people nearby and far off (as in the case of climate regulation). Crucially, we need to maintain our natural capital — not overexploiting the ecosystem and not over-polluting — if it is to continue providing these hugely valuable services.

The value of biodiversity in our forests

The primary reason for losing forest biodiversity is that its value is not well understood. For example the decision to convert one hectare of forest rich in biodiversity for agriculture or construction is usually based on the immediate benefits. Little attention is paid to the many non-measurable ecological services provided by these ecosystems.

Medicine in India's forests

In addition to rich flora and fauna, India also has one of the world's richest medicinal plant heritages. As many as 8 000 species of plants are regularly used as medicine by the people of India with 90–95 % coming from forests. Less than 2 000 of these plants are officially documented in the Indian system of medicine. Information on the rest is undocumented and transmitted by word of mouth and as traditional knowledge. Only 49 species are used in modern medicine.

Biodiversity is a form of insurance against human disease — a bank of knowledge holding potential cures for diseases such as cancer or AIDS. For example, the bark of the cinchona tree contains a drug used to fight malaria. Critically, we are often ignorant of society's loss when a species becomes extinct.

This section is based on the report Green accounting for Indian states project: the value of biodiversity in India's forests (Gundimeda et al., 2006)

The power to stay still

Globalisation is often characterised by movement — of people, goods, wealth and knowledge, for example. Standing still or staying put is not generally counted among the human rights we prioritise. But the forest people of Orissa and many others often crave just that: to be able to stay where they are, where they have food and shelter and contacts with their family and tribal relations. Where generations have felt safe and secure.

Indeed, as a tide of peoples moves towards cities and urban areas we should be thinking about empowering people to stay where they are.

]]>No publisherresource usebiodiversitynatural resourcesglobalnatural capitalforestsresource efficiencyforest ecosystemsecosystemsglobalisation2011/06/27 12:30:11 GMT+1ArticleTaking stock of our resource use on World Environment Day – 5 June 2011http://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/taking-stock-of-resources-on
Humans are consuming the world’s limited resources at increasingly rapid rate, and Europe is particularly reliant on imported goods to sustain its high levels of consumption. On World Environment Day, the European Environment Agency (EEA) draws attention to Europe’s resource use and offers tips to reduce it.“We need a long-term vision,” EEA Executive Director Jacqueline McGlade said. “This means weaning ourselves off fossil fuels and becoming more resource efficient. In the EU, for example, we use 16-17 tonnes of raw materials per person, which is two or three times more than that used in the developing world. So we need to change, from consuming everything we want to just consuming the things we need.”

Some facts on resource use in Europe:

Consuming even small amounts of resources can indirectly use large amounts of other materials. For example, producing one tonne of steel leaves behind a hidden flow of four tonnes of other materials, while this is a staggering 400,000 tonnes a tonne for platinum .

Resource use is accelerating. Between 1980 and 2005, global resource extraction grew by 50 %, while experts predict that extraction will increase by approximately 75 % in the 25 years from 2005-2030.

Europe is highly reliant on imported resources – in 2008, the EU-27 imported more than six times as much raw materials as it exports – bringing in 1 384 tonnes of materials, while exporting 203 million tonnes.

As high quality ore deposits and easily accessible fossil fuel reserves shrink, more energy is needed to extract resources – leading to greater climate change impacts.

The EU produces approximately six tonnes of waste for every person. However, increasing recycling and recovery turns more and more of this waste into resources in many countries.

Europe needs to decouple resource use from economic growth, according to the State and Outlook of the Environment Report (SOER) published by the EEA in 2010. Although this may sound like a difficult and complex task, all European citizens can play a part. Reducing consumption and increasing recycling are both important parts of the puzzle – perhaps something to consider on World Environment Day.

To find out how you can reduce your impact on the environment, check our Green Tips.

]]>No publisherresource usenatural resourcesconsumptionrecyclingresource efficiencywasteemissions reduction2011/06/01 16:26:03 GMT+1NewsForests and their forgotten communitieshttp://www.eea.europa.eu/articles/forests-and-their-forgotten-communities
In May 2008 a helicopter flew over unexplored parts of the Amazon in Acre State in Brazil, near the country’s border with Peru. Onboard were officials from Funai, the Brazilian government's Indian affairs department, on a mission to prove the existence of unknown Amazonian tribes who have never been in contact with the outside world. The few aerial pictures Funai has released show startled and intrigued people and their huts but do not reveal any landmarks which could be used to identify the exact location.

The
alarming rate of deforestation in the Amazon poses a very concrete threat to such
remote tribes. It does not only threaten their livelihood but also their way of
life. Loggers and cattle ranchers continue clearing the forest cover and moving
further into the heart of forest, inflicting often irreparable damage to the
environment as well as exposing remote tribes to diseases for which they have
no immunity.

Unfortunately,
the Amazon and its tribes are not the only ones bearing the consequences of the
growing global demand for natural resources. Five years ago Bisie was
jungle. Located in the Wailikale territory, east Congo, it is now a cramped
township as a result of the discovery of cassiterite, a derivative of tin that
is a crucial component in the circuitry of many modern gadgets. It’s in mobile
phones, laptops, digital cameras and gaming devices. Today despite the boom in mining
activities in its forests, the large majority of the Congolese remains
extremely poor.

Thousands of kilometres from
Bisie, in the state of Orissa nestled up against the Bay
of Bengal, live Gangi Bhuyan and her husband Sukru Bhuyan with
their young family. This is east India, the legendary spring of
India’s mineral wealth and a major source of materials for global industrial
growth in the past.

For about five months of the year
Gangi and Sukru feed their family from the less than half acre plot of land
they cultivate on the verge of the forest that surrounds Raibada, their
village. During this time they also harvest vegetables, seeds, fruit, medicine
and building materials (such as grass) from the forest. For a further four
months, this is their main supply of food. Without the forest they would
starve. For the remaining three months they are forced to migrate to large
urban areas such as Bangalore
or Mumbai where they work as labourers.

For many indigenous people the
forest is their lifeline, while the timber or the minerals buried beneath are
sometimes a curse. Across the world, because of their relatively higher
dependence on the environment, the poorest of the poor are often the most
affected by environmental degradation. This damage is driven by global demand
for raw materials, which in turn is driven by human consumption.

Unfortunately,
such communities’ historic claim to forest resources and land has rarely been
transcribed in modern society’s legal systems. Government bodies like Funai or
non-governmental movements like Survival International are faced with a
daunting task. To have the rights of such indigenous tribes protected fully, in
the case of the Amazon and Peru,
they might first have to prove the existence of these tribes.

In
other cases, like in India,
there has been some progress. The Forest Rights Act is now facilitating the transfer
of land rights to tribal communities. Gangi and Sukru Bhuyan have not received
a title to the plot of land but some of their neighbours have. These one-sided,
carefully laminated pieces of paper are clutched with a mixture of pride and
surprise. The success of their neighbours means that the Bhuyan family has
hope.

Most
of the losses in forest cover take place in developing countries and are
largely caused by weak governance structures for forest conservation and
management. But the pressures forests and forest communities face are not
limited to developing countries.

We
are using our planet’s resources faster than they can replenish themselves but
we want to continue consuming and producing ever more. We not only risk running
out of vital resources, we are actually making our home less and less habitable.

Perhaps the solution lies
in recognising the fact that we are only one species among many and our
wellbeing depends on harmonious interaction with all others. All living things,
including us, have a rightful claim on the forests of the world, even if we
live in an urban area on the other side of the planet, because the quality of
the air we breathe and the water we drink, and the climate we live in depend on
them.

What forests do for you

Forests can provide all sorts of
food: fruit, honey, mushrooms, meat and so on. If properly managed, they can
also deliver a sustainable flow of resources such as wood to the economy.

Forests are also crucial in terms of the
medicines they store. In India,
As many as 8 000 species of plants are regularly used as medicine by the
people of India
with 90–95 % coming from forests. Less than 2 000 of these plants are
officially documented.

But forests do a lot more. For
example, trees and vegetation help ensure a healthy climate locally and
globally by absorbing pollutants and greenhouse gases. Forest
soils decompose wastes and purify water. And people often travel far to enjoy
the beauty and tranquillity of forests, or to engage in pastimes such as
hunting.

All of these services — providing
food and fibre, regulating the climate and so on — are valuable. We would pay a
lot for machines that could do the same thing. For that reason, we should think
of ecosystems as a form of capital, which provides services to the owner but
often also to other people nearby and far off (as in the case of climate
regulation). Crucially, we need to maintain our natural capital — not
overexploiting the ecosystem and not over-polluting — if it is to continue
providing these hugely valuable services.

]]>No publisherresource useclimatebiodiversitynatural resourcesconsumptionforestsdeforestationhealthecosystemsforest ecosystems2011/04/15 14:39:42 GMT+1ArticleResource use per person, by country, 2000 and 2007http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/figures/resource-use-per-person-by
This graph shows the resource use per person, by country in 2000 and 2007.No publisherEEA standard re-use policy: unless otherwise indicated, re-use of content on the EEA website for commercial or non-commercial purposes is permitted free of charge, provided that the source is acknowledged (http://www.eea.europa.eu/legal/copyright). Copyright holder: European Environment Agency (EEA).resource usesoer2010dmcmaterial resourcesdmc per capitawasteresourcessynthesis2011/02/24 09:43:58 GMT+1FigureMaterial resources and waste — key message 2http://www.eea.europa.eu/soer/europe/material-resources-and-waste/key-messages/material-resources-and-waste-2014-1
Resource use and waste generation in the EU-27 have been decoupled from economic growth. However, in most countries resource use and waste generation still increase in absolute figures. Although resource efficiency continues to improve, the growth of material productivity has for decades been slower than the increase in labour productivity. There are no indications that the 6th Environment Action Programme (6th EAP) objective of the EU becoming 'the most resource-efficient economy in the world' is being met..
]]>No publisherresource useSOER2010material resourcesresource efficiencywasteresourcesEU objectives2010/11/28 18:40:00 GMT+1SOER 2010 Message (Deprecated)Material resources and waste - key fact 5http://www.eea.europa.eu/soer/europe/material-resources-and-waste/key-facts/material-resources-and-waste-fact-5
Of the 8.2 billion tonnes of materials consumed in EU-27 countries in 2007, minerals accounted for 52 %, fossil fuels for 23 %, biomass for 21 % and metals for 4 %. .
]]>No publisherresource usematerials2010/11/28 18:40:00 GMT+1SOER 2010 Key fact (Deprecated)Material resources and waste - key fact 2http://www.eea.europa.eu/soer/europe/material-resources-and-waste/key-facts/material-resources-and-waste-fact-2
An average European citizen uses about four times more resources than one in Africa and three times more than one in Asia, but half of that in the Unites States, Canada or Australia..
]]>No publisherresource useresources2010/11/28 18:40:00 GMT+1SOER 2010 Key fact (Deprecated)Natural resources and waste — SOER synthesis chapter 4http://www.eea.europa.eu/soer/synthesis/synthesis/natural-resources-and-waste-2014/view
No publisherresource useSOER2010natural resourcesconsumptionwaste managementwater resourceslife-cycle thinkingwater demandwasteconsumption patternssynthesisdecoupling2010/11/22 20:10:09 GMT+1FileThe European environment – state and outlook 2010: Synthesishttp://www.eea.europa.eu/soer/synthesis/synthesis
The SOER 2010 Synthesis provides an overview of the European environment's state, trends and prospects, integrating the main findings of SOER 2010.No publisherclimate change impactsclimate change consequencesclimate changerecyclingmarine ecosystemstradesocial inequalitiessoil functionsglobal consumptionmegatrendsresilienceoverfishingsoer2010decouplingroad trafficemissions from agricultureland usewaste managementforestsecological footprintwater resourceshuman healthhealthkyoto protocollife expectancyfreshwater ecosystemsenvironmental footprintwastepollutantswater quantityresource useecosystem servicesgreenhouse gas emissionsclimate change and healthquality of lifestate of the environmentbiodiversity losskyoto targetsreachpolicy integrationglobal warmingresource efficiencylife-cycle thinkingfarmlandtemperature increaseconservation of biodiversityecosystemseuropean neighbourhoodwaste water treatmentbiodiversitygreen economynatural resourceslong-term perspectiveair pollutionterrestrial ecosystemsland conversionnatural capitalpesticidesglobal tradeold-growth forestsclimate change adaptationgreen urban areaswater demandgrasslandwaste disposalnatureconsumption patterns2010/11/22 20:09:38 GMT+1PublicationSustainable consumption and production in South East Europe and Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia - Joint UNEP-EEA report on the opportunities and lessons learnedhttp://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/eea_report_2007_3
This report was jointly prepared by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the European Environment Agency (EEA) to support the development of sustainable consumption and production policies and implementation activities in the countries of South East Europe
and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. The objective is to identify opportunities for and barriers to more sustainable consumption and
production in the SEE and EECCA countries, and to highlight relevant experience which could be replicated throughout the region.No publisherenergy consumptionfood consumptionwelfaretradesocial inequalitieseconomic growthhousehold consumptionecological footprinttransportglobal tradegreen purchasingresource efficiencywasteresource usebuildingsgreenhouse gas emissionswaste managementsustainabilitypolicy instrumentsindustryfood productiondemographysustainable consumption and production2007/10/11 12:00:00 GMT+1PublicationEurope's environment — The fourth assessmenthttp://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/state_of_environment_report_2007_1
In this report, we underline the changes that have occurred in the environment and socio-economic context to help explain many of the environmental trends that have been observed. We identify successes and improvements but also
register old legacies that need further effort such as, in particular, air pollution, water issues and contaminated sites. New threats, which challenge
piecemeal solutions and call for integrated strategic measures at European and global levels, are described such as persistent chemicals in the environment, biodiversity loss, sustainable production and consumption and climate change.
And a new overview is given of the state of European marine areas and inland seas.No publisherclimate change impactshazardous chemicalssoilenergyinland wateragriculturepan-european environmentair qualitysustainable developmentbiodiversity monitoringsustainable forest managementenvironment for europehealthtransportclimate changeecological networkresource efficiencyresource use2010 biodiversity targetgreenhouse gas emissionsquality of lifestate of the environmentglobal warmingundpmarine and coastalpublic awarenesstourismozone depletionbiodiversityinvasive alien speciesclimate change mitigationclimate change adaptationsustainable farmingsustainable consumption and productionsocio-economy2007/10/10 11:00:00 GMT+1PublicationThe pan-European environment: glimpses into an uncertain futurehttp://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/eea_report_2007_4
No publisherwaste generationresource useenergy consumptionland usepopulation changefood consumptionclimate changefuture environmental challengestransport demandtradepan-Europeconsumption patternshealthmigrationdemographybiodiversity lossdevelopmentglobalisationpan-European environmentnatural resourcesforward-looking indicators2007/10/10 08:55:00 GMT+1PublicationEnvironmental pressures from European consumption and production - Insights from environmental accountshttp://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/brochure_2007_1
The environmental pressures analysed in the
project are: global warming potentials, acidification
potentials, tropospheric ozone forming potentials
and resource use.No publisherresource useconsumptionenvironmental accountswaste managementelectricityagriculturehousingnameatradefood productionproductionwastesustainable consumption and productiontransport2007/07/03 23:00:00 GMT+1Publication